Team Building Activities – Fun, Effective & Team approved

The annual team building weekend – it’s a big deal around here. And after reading the story of how we had yet another super-awesome team building in the summer of 2017, you’ll understand why. Here it goes:

There once was a mobile app development agency whose team of mobile specialists worked hard, Monday through Friday, to develop top-notch iOS and Android mobile apps for clients worldwide.

The tasks were at times strenuous, at times intriguing, but always a joy to work through. Because it’s with great passion for everything mobile that the boys and girls of tapptitude did their jobs.

But every now and then the tapptitude team liked to escape, to get away from the commotion of the big city and the wide screens at the office, and into the peace and quiet only hidden corners of nature can offer. So they planned their sweet escape meticulously, like they do everything else.

Group activities for fun

They searched for a cozy spot, somewhere up in the mountains, with no cars in sight but plenty of grass and trees – the perfect spot to have a team building weekend to remember. They also made sure to pick out some exciting team building activities and organize their time together right so as to enjoy it to the fullest.

Finally, they packed their bags, hopped on the microbus they had booked for the trip, and got themselves in party mood before they even made it out of the city.

As soon as the tapptitude squad got to the hideaway they hurried into the building and up the stairs to pick their bedrooms for the next couple of nights. Another few minutes passed and they had conquered the terrace and the backyard. Before they knew it, a state of total relaxation had installed. The terrace was the perfect place for people to sit back and focus on their favorite pastimes: chess, cards, table tennis, pool; even jumping on the trampoline was an option.

And the backyard was the perfect place for the people of tapptitude to unleash their playful side. Ever heard of water volleyball? They hadn’t either but the team was definitely up for the challenge. They divided themselves into two teams and put a net made up of bed sheets between them. In groups of two, they armed themselves with bath towels and did their best to either catch the flying water balloons of the enemy, or attack with a flying water balloon of their own. The weather was so warm and breezy though, the game quickly turned into a full on water balloon fight – and it was great.

*Splash, splash*

Fun team building activity I: Treasure Hunt

One thing you need to know about app developers is you can’t have a bunch of them up in the wild and expect them to lounge all day long. They sure need a good challenge; like a treasure hunt for example.

A treasure hunt requires teamwork, good problem solving and communication skills, and, of course, people being open to collaborating in order to efficiently and effectively move through the challenges the game is based on. As players will find, cracking codes and unlocking clues is a lot easier when done right, with help from each other instead of alone.

All dressed up in the purple t-shirts they had made especially for the occasion, the boys and girls of tapptitude lined up in the big backyard of the hotel to learn the rules of their first team building activity. A modern-day treasure hunt that went like this:

They were divided into four teams, each group having to search and find 6 small plastic bags, each containing puzzle pieces (that will add up to a big puzzle picture) and a colored note (either red, blue, green or yellow) with a unique QR code printed on it. Teams had to scan the QR codes to get their next clue, in order to find all of the bags, thus all of the puzzle pieces they were meant to find. Each group was represented by a specific color – red, blue, green, or yellow – and had to gather only the bags with their color in it.

After having retrieved all of the bags that were meant for them, the hunt was still far from over. Making it to the tables was not enough to win; teams had to solve their puzzles as well. Hunched over the ping pong table, people did their best to match the puzzle pieces right. It was a fierce fight, as the last minutes of a fight always are.

In the end, it was the green squad that took home the prize: tickets to an escape room experience. Since they did so well in the team building treasure hunt, the organizers thought it would only be fair to reward them with yet another physical adventure game where they’d have to solve puzzles by uncovering clues and hints, and using clever strategies to their advantage.

Whether winner or loser, everyone had a good laugh admiring the final puzzle: a beautiful photoshopped picture of all of us here at tapptitude.

Fun team building activity II: Memory Lane

In short, Memory Lane is a team building suitable activity where players have to effectively communicate with each other in order to reconstruct a hidden structure.

There are team members who see the original shape, then there are team members who relay everything they manage to learn about the original shape meant for reconstruction, and then there are the players who are at the end of the chain, who are supposed to build a replica of the original shape, based on the info they get from their teams.

Again, the boys and girls of tapptitude were divided into four teams, following the rules of the Memory Lane game. Big hearted as they are, the shape they chose for this activity was a dog, built out of cardboard, some glue and some thumbtacks.

Teams did their best to recreate the shape. The players who got to see the original strived to remember it well and describe it accordingly. The players who had to carry the info to the other players did their best to understand what they were being told, as well as to think of important details that could help the team out. Last but not least, the builders did their best to turn the info they got into the winning dog shape.

Everyone got all creative and things took a really funny turn when teams were done building. It’s quite interesting to see how different perception can be from one human being to another. The results were definitely worth the hustle, especially for the winning team: they won tickets to a game of laser tag, a place for them to compete just as fierce as they did in this competition.

The people in purple

Though one might think this is the name of another team building activity, it is not. It’s the one ingredient that can make or break a team building escapade: the people.

It’s said that some of the tapptitude members go way back, having been through college together, but that most of the team met as part of this mobile app development agency, and you couldn’t tell the difference.

The tapptitude team had waited a long time for this team building to take place. They had planned the whole thing through; they even had a team building committee made up of team members to ensure that everyone’s wishes were taken into consideration. This long awaited weekend of fun activities, neat surprises, delicious food, and the best mood was finally here. They would not let this occasion go without a bang.

Besides joining in on the super-fun team building activities they had picked out for the occasion, the team organized a fierce beer pong competition, and ended every evening trying out all the jacuzzis and saunas in the hotel’s spa. They also upheld the team’s tradition to have a campfire.

Safely returned back home, the people of tapptitude were somewhat exhausted from the intense weekend they had behind them, but mostly thrilled that, yet again, the tapptitude team building was a real success – one they would talk and laugh about until the next one.

Ta-da!

Content Marketing Specialist, teasing everyone into taking cute pictures for Instagram. Discovering the tech world bit by bit, and writing it all down on the agency's blog. Enthusiastic about everything visual. And sweets and dogs.

tapptitude started out as a 4-man-operation almost 4 years ago. The fact that it’s a strong team of more than 35 mobile specialists today is due to the company’s culture of continuously growing fresh talent.

We design and develop iOS and Android mobile apps for startups and international brands innovating on mobile.